Snake Charmer

[ShadowsDance]

Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut.

In the bottle: If I didn't know better, I would swear this is Snake Oil. That.. doesn't look good for me..
On my skin.. yeah, pretty much the same as snake oil. It starts out musky and spicy, and within about 10 minutes it turns to power and never looks back. Edited May 29, 2009 by Shollin
fixed BPAL tags

[anna1850]

Resurrected 2008

 

Interesting and very musky. If this was a colour it would be a very deep red. The coconut's not overpowering which is a good thing. But ultimately it's a bit heavy and not really me. I'd rather smell girly than sexy.

 

2.5/5 I'm quite glad I don't love it though as it's so hard to find.

[Victory]

Sigh. I'd wanted to get a bottle of Snake Charmer when it first came out, then when it came out the second time, and finally got it the third time around because the notes seemed so very, very, VERY me. All of the notes are good on me. But Snake Charmer just doesn't play nicely with me. It smells much like Snake Oil on me- and Snake Oil smells powdery and headshoppy on me without any vanilla to smooth the way- but more so. This is a giant whumping of dark powder. On one wrist I can almost detect something behind the powder and the darkness, almost like seeing through smoke, but nothing ever resolves itself. It is so very disappointing, like biting into an apple and getting a worm. I'll give a scent locket a try, but I'm not too hopeful about it. How sad.

[lucy gray]

(Note: this is aged, original-run Snake Charmer that I'm talking about.)

 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Not a lot of plum to my nose -- the major difference between this and Madame Moriarty -- just thick, warm, spicy vanilla. This is what I expected Snake Oil to smell like, rather than the stale, grungy patchouli that I get even from hella-aged SO.

 

A little goes a long way, though. One small swipe on my wrist had me smelling it like it was right under my nose for hours and hours.

[Gin]

Snake Charmer Resurrected

 

I got a bottle of Snake Charmer the first time around and didn't like it. Either I did a too-quick sniff test or I just didn't "get it." I'm glad I gave it another try. Sniffing the bottle, I'm still sort of 'meh' but OMG, when applied, it's goo-ood. It's like plummy Snake Oil--the Best Plummy Snake Oil Ever.

[Gardenia]

(Rez'd version.)

 

Snake Oil has never worked for me, so I was hoping this could be my sexy incense blend. Sadly, this didn't work on me either. Snake Charmer just seems to want to be a bitter powdery scent, even after I let it age for a while. Ah, well.. It's off to someone who loves it now.

[sprocket21]

Oh, the famous Snake Charmer. I am most decidedly not a fan of Snake Oil (mmm, medicinal cat pee), so I hope that SC turns out quite different on me.

 

In the imp: Well, this certainly doesn't smell like Snake Oil. It's hard to describe - musky and sweet - but if it stays on my skin like it is in the vial, it'll be a keeper.

 

On me: Uh oh. I'm getting some medicinal vibes from it. It's largely musk and spices on me at this point, but I think the spices are similar to the SO spices, and that's where I'm getting the medicine smell. There's also something making it a bit milky-sweet. It's got a ridiculously strong throw too.

 

Honestly, it's pretty similar to Snake Oil, and I'm not too in love with it. However, next time I go out for a night on the town, I'll try it out and see if others perceive it the same way.

[tragedy]

The original SC:

 

I'm absolutely in mad love with Snake Oil, so I knew Snake Charmer would be a hit with me.

I didn't expect to love it THIS much though!!

Snake Oil is sexy, Snake Charmer is sexy amped.

I get the snake oil (which is aged nicely of course) and heavier spices, and plum... its all rounded out so nicely and quite frankly the absolutely most sensual thing I've ever come across.

 

I'm deeply in love!!!

[redderz]

Resurrected 08 Version

 

In the bottle: Patchouli and plum. Amber too!

 

Wet: Pure, sexy love. Still patchouli, but... dear god, I can't even describe it. Something is amazing. This is kind of a pointless review because all I'm doing is sniffing myself.

 

I LOVE THIS.

[Ohmaude]

Original version.

 

This is ambery-plum, vanilla sex. Snake Oil + sunshine + orgasm.

 

A friend gifted me a half bottle last year and I've been carefully measuring out every drop, It's that good.

[Frills]

This is Snake Oil (the one perfume besides Lolita Lempicka I always, always get a compliment on when I wear)...but better. Snake Oil turns really sharp and bitter towards the end, which always makes me hesitate to wear it again. Snake Charmer stays rich and balanced and smooth the whole way through. It makes me want to go clubbing

[aiko]

My nose is overwhelmed at the moment by Smut, Midnight Kiss and snake charmer. They are similar in my horrible memory, but comparing them side by side, they are so different. heh

 

I have not tried snake oil before, so I can't compare with it. Snake Charmer is a beautiful sexy blend of coconut, vanilla, spice and something sweet, most probably plum. Like a player, it is smooth, dark and appealing. I am glad I have an imp of this. Thank you for the decant, stellans!

 

[MamaMoth]

Huge thanks to Sunshinedaisybliss for gifting me with a decant of this to try.

 

This is for the resurrected vintage, and I just have to comment on how thick and viscous and positively divine it is in the vial.

 

It leads with the sweet fruitiness of the plum, propped up by the powdery resinousness of amber. And behind those two stars of the show, I can sense the Snake Oil relation. It's a cousin to Snake Oil, but more different than I expected it to be. It has none of the medicinal qualities of snake oil, and more fruity sweetness. Overall it dries down to be a bit sweeter in a foodier kind of way, less musky-vanillic than Snake Oil.

 

I love this, and now I have to hunt down a bottle. Oh woe!

[Invidiana]

Wow. I've fallen completely head-over-heels in love with this scent thanks to a sniffie with just enough to test, and now there's no looking back. It's just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Wet I got a hint of something faintly head-shop-ish, which worried me, but that goes away in a second once I put it on. Then it just turns into this absolutely intoxicating dark, sweet blend--some foodniess in there though not completely foody-- where I know each note is there but they all blend so well together that the combination seems to become one note all its own. I'm another one of those annoying people with synaesthesia and I'd characterize this one as a deep purple with reddish undertones--go figure, but that's what came to mind. It's a very mesmerizing and memorable scent, and I will not give up hunting it until I snag a bottle!

Edited January 4, 2010 by Invidiana

[saralaughs]

Weird.

 

First applied and for awhile on drydown I get hibiscus. Like, Tiki Queen hibiscus.

 

Anyway, it's hibiscus and musk and resins at first. Slowly the sharp yet magical floral quality of the Hib goes away and fades into this glorious yum that is resins and plum/coconut. The resins stand out a bit more but there is a fruitiness behind it that really lightens it up and rounds it out. Vanilla and amber are backrunners in this but without them, the blend wouldn't work half as well as it does. It's creamy and deep and warm and sexy and yum.

 

Love.

[Deiicide]

To be honest, if one were to put both Misfortune Teller and this on my wrist at the same time, it would smell almost exactly the same. Just Red Musk party show, with some patchouli. No vanilla, no plum though they are there just lurking in the back letting the other two do all the work. Honestly though it's not bad, probably will get better as it ages. Hell, half the reason I got this because I needed something to tame the folks at my Call Center! In my mind, it worked.

[misscoldheart]

I just got a bottle of SC res, and, honestly it reminds me a lot of The Witch Queen. It's because the one note my skin amps more than any other is plum. I'm not a big fruit scent person, so I'm kind of iffy on this. Since the scent was so faint when I first tried it I think I put too much on, cuz now all I can smell is really sweet plum and incense, which is just what TWQ did on me as well.

Not too sure if this is for me...I was so sure it would behave!

[CitizenBree]

Snake oil in the imp, but once it's on that disappears and the musk comes out like WHOA. Be careful about slathering with this one. It started to hurt my nose a bit, but i still loved the scent. Much more Mme. Moriarty than snake oil. I think I must amp musks. This is all spicy and musk. Very sexy.

 

I did not get any coconut or plum at all.

 

Since this is hard to find, the madame will serve my needs just fine.

[miaa]

In bottle:I have had dreams about this for years... In all my years as a BPAL enthusiast there is one thing I have never stopped regretting. When they launched snake charmer for the first time I already knew the company, but I was sceptical due to the musk note. When snake charmer res came out, my mind was drawn to the other limited edition scents. If I had been a forum member I would have known better, but I tried signing up for years and somehow my apple computer did not seem to get me through. As the years went on my longing for snake charmer became almost desperate. Today I got my baby and when I opened the bottle I knew that this perfume was made for me. Thanks to Chaoskitty I got an aged snake oil imp which was fantastic. To me the scent of snake charmer is snake oil in an aged fantastic way.

 

On me:If it was good in the bottle it was phenomenal on my skin. The layers keeps on taking me to new hights. I hoped and begged that the vanilla would stand out since vanilla is one of my favourite notes. This vanilla did not let me down, nor was it too candy or too soapy.

 

Do not get me wrong, I love candy blends, but this blend is not and will never be a regular blend. It is simply a masterpiece. Honestly I never thought I would have this huge crush on a BPAL scent, but for me snake charmer is the heavy comforting party perfume I always hoped it would be. And I am so glad that my other favourite scents, which are candy phoenix and F5, finally has a heavy sibling in locket.

[mxtine]

OMG. I need to have a vat of this stuff because the Holy Grail has been found.

 

My first whiff was Snake Oil because I took it out of the mailbox that was baking in the 117 degree heat. I stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes then tested again. This time I smelled a delicious vanilla musk. I dabbed a bit on my wrist and sniffed again. I smelled a creamy Nag Champa incense with coconut, which is so amazing. I can't even begin to explain how happy I am.

 

 

[brettashley]

I got my hands on a testable sniffie of Snake Charmer Resurrected, thanks to a wonderful forumite, and I wanted to post my thoughts on it before I forgot!

 

Wet: Smells a lot like Snake Oil going on, but with less patchouli. There's something sweeter here, and spicier.

 

Dry: Snake Charmer is amazingly well-blended. It's a spicy vanilla sister of Snake Oil, but it's not overly heavy - instead, it's actually got a coolness to it that balances the heaviness out. I think that's the hint of coconut other people are talking about. I'm liking this much more than Snake Oil, but to be honest, I wasn't crazy about Snake Oil to begin with.

 

Overall, it's a fantastic scent, well-blended and delicious, and if it was still up, I'd probably buy a bottle. As it is however, I've missed both my chances and to me, it's not really worth it to try to track a bottle down. I would get it if I saw it, but I'm not gonna go nuts if I don't get more - there's simply too much awesome BPAL to go around to get hung up on a scent or two.

 

8.5/10

[SophieCedar]

Wet: Like others have said, definitely like they mixed O and Snake Oil. I was hoping the arabian musk was going to have more throw. Oh well... the spices are sharp and unique, plum wet & rounded, not heady and sweet.

Drydown: my nose adjusts to this too quickly! I can smell it if I'm moving around (close to whirling dervish action). I believe it's perfect for those who are sensitive to smell, but I'm a smell junkie and need to drown in it in order to be satisfied.. *slather slather slather*

[*butterflybynight*]

My first review of any sort and I want to start right off by thanking GypsyRoseRed....I was only able to get my mitts on this through her and it was a nice, full bottle of the Resurrected version. The first time I ever read about this scent I just knew I had to have and wear it, no matter what! This is a perfect scent for me and my tastes. In the bottle this is sort of astringent. Closing my eyes, I clearly envision a snake, the top end is an herbal and bitey head, followed by a long and smooth vanilla body, which leads down to a whispy tail of incense...OH MY GOD! >slathering NOW!< Close to the skin it keeps most of its herbacious twinge, but get a foot away from me and it is all vanillaish spice, which turns more and more nag champaish more and more towards the drydown. This smell to me is divine, this could easily be my signature smell and I even want my casket to reak of it when I have to pass....

[blu°]

My relationship with Snake Charmer has been kind of tumultuous. When I first got it, I found that it didn't really work that well on my skin, and swapped away my bottles later on. Then, I found an old decanting pipette that had a drop of it left. And that aged drop of Snake Charmer smelled sooooo perfectly of my favourite incense from the bellydance shop in that area where I lived... I still thought it wouldn't work with my chemistry, but I had to get some of that stuff again. And if only to see if it might smell better on me once it has aged.

 

Now, I'm still not sure it works for me... I'm having doubts that Egyptian amber, as other ambers, doesn't work for me that well, and I'm also specifically eyeing ambrette and ambrette seed as a note that regularly ruins blends for me.

 

That said, I still like to smell Snake Charmer, and to wear it. And I even get compliments on it, when I do. I think it goes a tad more powdery on me than it's supposed to be. I'm not really into plum, but as the scent ages, the plum note seems to become weaker, or maybe just more muddled and darker, and it stops being a main player in the blend. While Snake Charmer is similar to Snake Oil, it doesn't have its liquid character at all on me. It steers a bit into Morocco territory with that powderiness.

 

Since this all might sound as if I didn't really like the blend: I DO!! It is very sexy and sensual and warm. It just never gets to the point where it smells like that aged drop I found. Maybe I should leave a bottle open for a while, or spread the oil somewhere where it is exposed to light and air even more. Or use it in an oil burner.

[imaginepageant]

In the Vial: Wow, this is one thick, viscous oil! It's borderline gelatinous. Definitely the original Snake Charmer from 2005. It's a lot like Snake Oil, but brighter and crisper. The amber and labdanum are making it deliciously resinous. I can't exactly pick out the plum, but I can tell that it's giving the blend a bit of a juicy, fruity quality.

 

Wet: Goes very tart, then very resinous, but resembles Snake Oil much more on the drydown. Wow, this is complex. It's sweet and resinous, musky and animalistic, very exotic, and a tad smoky.

 

Dry: Mmmm. This has gotten a lot darker and smokier. I can definitely see this being the scent of a snake charmer's tent at a carnival - dark, cloudy, and mysterious, a little strange, a little frightening. I don't know if it's just the power of suggestion, but the word "slithering" comes to mind when trying to describe this.

 

An Hour Later: Wow, my skin is really eating up scents lately; Snake Charmer has sadly gotten pretty faint. And much closer to Snake Oil; I'll have to do a side-by-side test once I get more Snake Oil. But! I can finally kind of almost maybe smell the coconut!

 

Overall: Always having loved Snake Oil, I can't help but love Snake Charmer. However, I'm glad it isn't so different that I fell totally in love and had to have more, because I'd be screwed!